Silver Fork Skiing

Greg, Scott, John and I were able to go skiing up Silver Fork yesterday.  It was so cold!  The wind chill was reportedly -46°F at 11,000 ft yesterday morning.  I took my gloves off for a minute or two when we stopped for a snack and I my fingers were numb for a half hour after.

Here are Scott and John skinning up:

With pockets of considerable avalanche danger, we mostly stuck to tree covered slopes.

Scott tele-turning through the trees:

Greg:

Scotty:

Johnny on his new monster skis:

Greg

We ended up coming down an area different than we were planning and had to hike out a couple miles to the spruces campground where Scott hitch hiked back to his truck.  Seven hours of skiing sure is tiring. 

Mace's first time skiing

Mace went skiing for the first time last week.  Granted, he wasn't really the one skiing, but he seemed to enjoy it.  I could tell because he kept making car noises and tapping my shoulders, which basically means "faster, Faster! FASTER!!"   

We went up to Albion Basin because of the gentle terrain and beautiful scenery. 

 Here is Lyndsay in front of Superior, Cardiff and Flagstaff.

Mace rode on my back.

It was beautiful! Here is a picture of Alta from the Albion Basin road

Again, here is Mount Superior looking like it belongs in Europe somewhere: 

Mace fell asleep after a while.

Here is Lyndsay coming down Alta:

Here is Mace seconds after we woke him up:

Skiing Pictures

I have been really excited about skiing this year.  I was looking over some pictures taken last year and decided I would try to post them.  Most of these pictures are actually several pictures taken and stitched together using a program called  Hugin

Can you Flex?

Tyler has taught Mace how to flex!

Oh how I love my little guy!

The balloon and a broom

Last night, we went to Little Caesars. We brought home pizza and a balloon. For some reason, Tyler took the string off and let it float around. Today, Mace has been loving chasing the balloon all over the house. It has lost a lot of helium, but will still float to the ceiling.

I was taking pictures of Mace holding the balloon when he let go and it floated up. 

It was so cute watching him try and figure out what to do.

First, he stood on the foot rest and tried to reach it. 

When that didn't work, he ran in the kitchen and grabbed the broom.

(I am amazed that he thought of getting something to reach it with!) 

When that didn't work, he gave me a "Mom, help me!" look.

So, I used the broom and got it for him. Happy Boy!

Two seconds later, the balloon is resting on the ceiling.

Good thing I still had the broom!

A few funny stories about my Macer

Getting ready can be really hard sometimes. Mace always seems to want my attention. Some days, he sits in the bath while I put my make-up on. Other days, he ends up on the counter watching himself in the mirror. A few weeks ago, he was doing just that. I had turned on some music and we were having a lot of fun. I was working on my hair, when I noticed that Mace was also working on his. He was brushing his hair and using hair spray! I laughed so hard! He was so proud of himself. (I wonder if he knew that he was wearing a hat? Maybe it was part of the look he was going for!)

Here he is with the hair spray.

And this time, he has the hair brush.

Next, about a week ago, Mace kept going over to our oven door and crying, like he wanted something. I couldn't figure it out for the life of me. When I held him up, I pointed to the empty brownie pan. I was confused as to why he would want it, but I let him have it anyways. As soon as I set both him and the brownie pan on the floor, Mace took the spatula and started scraping bits of chocolate off and eating them! He sat there for quite a while eating every bit he managed to get off! He even licked the spatula nice and clean!

Licking the spatula. It kind of freaked me out.

Lastly, Mace has discovered peek-a-boo. He has always been into hiding. He will hide alone or with either Tyler or myself. One of his favorite places, is in my closet. Our floor plan is different than most people. In order to get the bathroom from our bedroom, you must go through out closet first. There is a door on each end of our closet, and Mace will run in and close both doors. It is hilarious! Now, he likes to hide behind his little hands and peek out to see if we are watching him!

I love the squished nose!

I love you little boy!

p.s. All of these pictures were taken on my cell phone, and so they are not the best quality. :(

Waiting

Sometimes, I let Mace sit in the window and watch for Tyler to get home from work. Mace loves it. Every few minutes I will ask him, "Is Daddy home yet?" Mace gets this great big smile on his face and eagerly looks out the window! Mace and Daddy are such buddies! 

I took this picture yesterday with my cell phone! (I am impressed by how cute it turned out. My cell phone rarely gives me cute pictures!)

Don't you just love the red hat? My mom gave it to me. It used to be my little brother's hat. It barely buttons under his chin. Mace wore it all day yesterday. He wouldn't let me take it off! So, he ran around in a diaper and his red hat all day. Every time I looked at him, I couldn't help but laugh. He kind of reminded me of Chancho from Nacho Libre.

Our Fat Family

Last night, our friends, Jesse and Angela, watched Mace while we went to visit our friends, Whitney and Kevin, because they just had their little girl. 

She is so adorable! It was so much fun to hold a TINY baby and not fight to keep her still! I am amazed at how much my little boy has grown. I am so proud of Whitney! She delivered her little girl without getting an epidural! She is amazing, and I am glad that we are friends! 

Then, we headed home to pick up Mace. Jesse and Angela are so good to us for watching him. He hung out with them for a little bit, while Angela made mint-chocolate-chip cookie! (I am eating one right now, and loving it!)

Jesse has the fat booth app on his iPhone. He took pictures of us all. Let's just say, we are not good looking fat people!

Tyler's beard is so gross!

I think I look the worst!

I don't think Mace looks too much bigger! (He is already a large boy. I took him to the doctor last week. He weighs 28lbs! WOW)

I definitely feel motivated to work out and keep my body healthy after seeing this!

200,000 Miles!

Today (October 27, 2010), our dear and loyal 1995 Geo Prizm hit 200,000 miles.  200,000 miles!  That is like driving from LA to NY 80 times or driving around the equator 8 times; almost the distance to the moon.  If you replaced your typical day job with driving, it would still take you 2 years if you could average 50mph to reach 200,000 miles. 

According to the DOT, the average car is scrapped at 145,000 miles.  To put that in perspective, equating the average scrapped mileage to the current U.S. life expectancy (78.4 years) would make the Prizm 108 years old.

It has been through a lot over the past 15 years:  4 owners, several fender benders, 15 Utah winters, “jumping Wasatch” before they fixed it, countless trips up and down the canyons, teenage drivers, dirt roads, being high centered, etc.  Basically, you name it and it has done it.   It has been battered and bruised, dinged and dented, slid and squealed, and somehow, through it all, it still runs.  Not only does it run; it runs great. Sure, it has a few minor flaws:  the interior door handles are held on with Krazy Glue, the trip meter doesn’t work, the dome light doesn’t work, the center rear light cover fell off, the headlight cover is cracked, it is hard to shift into reverse, the doors leak water whenever it rains, it is rusting all over, the hood and trunk paint don’t match the rest, it only has two hubcaps, the air vents only point at the ground unless you cram something in them…  You get the picture.   

Earlier this year I started thinking that we should get a new car.  I remember thinking that since I drive so much I should really get rid of this old clunker and get something that is new and more fuel efficient; something so I could reduce my carbon footprint and feel like I am not such a polluter.  I started looking at the Honda Insight.  It gets amazing mileage: 40 city/43 highway.  You see those car commercials filled with green grass and blue skies and it makes you think that driving anything but one of those is like shooting unicorns with Uzis.  I decided I would start keeping track of the miles per gallon to determine just how many little fluffy bunnies I could save by buying a new, more fuel efficient car.

  I was amazed to find out that even after all this car has been through, I am still averaging 36.8 mpg.

OK, so the Insight gets 6 mpg better.  Sounds like I should go with it.  But, of course, it takes some energy to build a new car.  I looked online and found a few websites about the energy to build cars.  It appears that building, transporting, and selling an Insight takes about 25,000 kWh of energy – the energy equivalent of 685 gallons of gas.  When you do the math, I would start saving energy and in turn unicorns and little fluffy bunnies after a mere 181,639 miles.   Crazy!  That is not what I expected.    Of course that doesn’t take into consideration other factors, like safety, reliability, and the energy that goes into maintaining an aging car, but still, it is a surprising number.

I also stumbled across some articles on the stupidity of the cash for clunkers program.  The website is still open – I just barely went and saw that I could have traded in a 1995 Ford F-150 for a Hummer H3T and the government would have paid me $3,500 for a whopping improvement from a dismal 15 mpg to a phenomenal 16 mpg.  When you take into consideration the amount of energy it takes to produce a H3T, you would be saving energy after 283,010 miles. 

What makes it all worse is that the cash for clunkers program required that the trade in car be drivable and then they would destroy the car by draining the oil and adding sodium silicate to a running engine totally destroying it.

http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/CarsSearchIntro.shtml

http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/emissions/ind_calculator.html

The countdown (up?) to reaching 200,000 miles.

(While I, Lyndsay, would like to take credit for writing this post, I cannot. Tyler wrote it, which is fitting since it is his car. I love how he wrote about his car! It is a side of his personality that not everyone knows!

I will take credit for taking (most of them) and adding the pictures.

I added him as an addition blog author, so you might be seeing posts from him every now and then.)